Knowing its Name: role of naming in the earliest Chinese and Greek cosmologies

Abstract

The paper explores the role of naming in the context of the earliest Chinese and Greek cosmologies. Names, and language in general play, an important role in the cosmolgies and represent an instrument through which an individual becomes an active co-creator of the cosmic order.

Keywords

• Chinese philosophy
• cosmology
• metaphysics
• pre-Socratic thought
• Heraclitus
• logos
• naming